Mate Claimed

Iona smoothed her hands across his hard chest, remembering how she’d enjoyed teasing his ni**les with her tongue. His ni**les were soft now, Eric nowhere near excited.

She drew her fingers down his abdomen, finding the smooth indentation of his navel. Farther down to his lower belly until she touched the c**k below it.

“Mmm,” Eric said. “Better.”

The sweat on his face and his rapid breathing didn’t convince her. “Are you sick? Shifter flu?”

Eric shook with silent laughter. “No such thing. I haven’t felt like this since…” He trailed off, his laughter dying.

Iona lifted her hand from the base of his cock, sensing he didn’t need sexual play right now. “Since when? Since your mate died?”

“No, that was different. This was later, when we first took the Collar.”

Eric closed his mouth abruptly, as though he didn’t want to talk about the Collar. Iona lightly rubbed his stomach. “Tell me about your wife. Mate, I mean. What was she like?”

Eric didn’t answer right away. He hesitated so long that Iona thought he wouldn’t answer at all, but then he spoke softly.

“Kirsten was—amazing. Hair like sunshine, but her eyes were black. She could run like nothing I’d ever seen before, and she didn’t take any shit from me.”

“What kind of cat was she?” Iona kept rubbing his abdomen, noting that his nearly frantic breathing had finally slowed.

“Leopard. Not a snow leopard like me and Cass, a gold and black one. Leopards are one of the smallest wildcats, even among Shifters, but they’re the most dominant. Kirsten had…personality. A lion Shifter was after her once, a huge guy, both in his human and wildcat form. She pretty much told him what to do with himself. That was fun to watch.”

“You loved her.”

“I did. With everything I had.” Eric stilled Iona’s hand with his large one. “Why do you want to know this?”

“It tells me what kind of person you are. And it’s making you feel better.”

Eric drew a breath and relaxed. Then, at the bottom of the breath, his body went rigid with pain, his hand closing hard on hers. “Son of a bitch.”

“Let me get Cassidy.”

Eric’s hold tightened. “Don’t leave me. Stay with me. Please.”

The grating cry wrenched Iona’s heart. She lifted their joined hands and kissed his fingers. “Keep telling me about Kirsten.”

“Can’t.” Eric’s teeth were clenched, eyes tightly closed. “She died. It hurt. It hurt so much.”

The grief in his voice was true. “Then tell me about Jace,” Iona said quickly. “He looks so much like you.”

“He puts up with a lot.” Eric tried to smile, lips barely moving. “It’s tough, being son of the leader.”

“Were you the son of a leader? Was your father leader?”

“Yeah, he was clan leader, but he passed right after Cassidy was born. I was too young to know him.”

“What about your mom?”

“Died soon after that. She never got over losing my dad, and she just gave up. It was me and Cass from then on.”

“I’m sorry,” Iona whispered. She imagined two young Shifters, alone, scared, unsure what to do. “Where did you live?”

“Scotland. In an old, burned-out manor house some Englishman abandoned. The people in the village took care of us. They thought we were demons or Fae or something. We became a local legend—the villagers believed that if they took care of the wild things up at the old house, we’d take care of them. And we did. Cass and I protected them.”

“But you still took the Collars.”

“Times changed. Superstitions died. The World Wars changed everything. Cass and I went to Norway in the forties to help the underground movements, and when we came back to Scotland, our house had been requisitioned and turned into a hospital. We had to find somewhere else to live. People who remembered the old ways had passed, and new people from the cities moved in. When Shifters were revealed and the locals finally knew what we were, they wanted to kill us. I turned us in to save Jace and my sister.”

“And you were relocated here?”

“Hell of a long way from the Scottish Highlands.” Eric brushed his fingers across her bare forearm. “You have Scots in you too. It shouts loud and clear, and so does your name.”

“My mom’s family moved out here about a hundred years ago,” Iona said. “From St. Louis. I don’t know why my mother named me Iona.”

“It’s a beautiful name, an island in the Hebrides. I’m thinking she named you to remember your Scottish father.”

“Who I’ve never found out about. My mother has kept a lot from me, but I’m thinking she still never knew very much.”

“His name was Ross McRae.”

Iona looked down at him, startled. “How do you know that?”

“I have resources.” Eric’s voice was less pain-filled now. “I have Xavier and his ability to find information on humans. Ross McRae was the name on your birth certificate.”

“My mother told me only a little bit,” Iona said. “Did Xavier find out anything about him?”

“Not yet. There might not be anything to find,” Eric said, his look serious. “If he’s still alive, he could have hidden himself well. Shifters can be tricky.”

“No kidding.”